The bottle
by crism79
Summary: It was just an empty bottle of 1982's Bordeaux wine. Pilot missing scene


**Title: **The bottle  
**Author:** crism79  
**Rating:** G  
**Fandom:** White Collar  
**Characters/Pairings**: Neal/Kate  
**Spoilers:** Pilot  
**Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: **This is my take on what happened before Peter found Neal in Kate's apartment  
**Word Count: **1038  
**Summary: **It was just an empty bottle of 1982's Bordeaux wine.

_White Collar doesn't belong to me, so no copyright infringement intended, I'm just having some fun with the characters and promise to bring them back :)) _

It was just a bottle.

Neal turned it his hands and if he could coldly analyze it, it was really just a bottle. A brown piece of glass made to hold liquid in it, that at the top could have a cork or some plastic cap to keep the liquid in. It was that simple. But the sinking feeling in his stomach and the weight that empty bottle had in his hands and in his heart told him otherwise.

Escaping prison had been nothing, finding Kate had been easy, she seemed to want to be found, she hadn't used any of her aliases, and that had raised Neal's hope into thinking that he had been right all along. Something had been wrong on that last visit a month ago. She had been in some kind of trouble and that last visit had been a cry for help. It was the only explanation, nothing else made sense. So when he had found the apartment and knocked on the door, his heart was racing like crazy. Expecting Kate to open it with a big smile on her face and her big blue eyes beaming at him with unshed tears, arms going around him in a tight embrace that he had missed for three years. To smell her hair, touch her face and kiss her lips like he had been dreaming. A romantic gathering like the ones in the movies.

But nobody was answering the door, not even when Neal called her name frantically. There were no happy reunions and smiles and tears of relief when she explained to him what was really happening, who was pressuring her. The knot on his stomach intensified.

Maybe he had gotten the wrong apartment number or maybe Kate had gone out for some errand and would be back soon. Neal would wait for her, problem was he didn't know how much of a head start he had over the authorities. And they had to be quick, because in his escape Neal had been careless and sloppy and surely the US Marshals, the FBI and Agent Burke would be on to them very, very soon.

Their time was really constricted. He knocked again and called her until one of the neighbors showed up and told him that Kate had left a two days ago. It was like a punch on the gut. Neal blinked stunned unable to breathe for a while.

Two days... he had missed her by two days... How was it possible? Why hadn't he been quicker on his escape? Why hadn't she waited a little longer, surely she knew he's come for her? Why had she left? The nice old lady told him that she had left no forwarding address, it had been an over the night decision. Some big job offer somewhere that she just had to take. Neal had tried to read any hidden message in the kind lady's words, something that he could use to follow Kate, but there was nothing. She had noticed nothing wrong with Kate's attitude and nothing the lady said was useful. So as soon as she had left he had picked the lock and entered the apartment in a rush.

Surely Kate had left him something in there for him. A cryptic letter, a loosen floorboard, a hole in a wall with some clue... This was wrong, just wrong in so many ways that Neal couldn't even acknowledge the possibility that maybe her words a month ago had really meant just what they meant.

The apartment was empty taking a few things. An old bike, and some other odds and ends. Neal stared at the open space trying to decide where to start looking until a single object in the middle of it caught his attention. His heart skipping a beat and a sickening feeling settling on his stomach, Neal realized that he didn't need to get any closer to know what it was and what it meant.

_It was just a bottle_. His detached mind told him, _it meant nothing_. But as his feet carried him to it and his hands picked it up his heart was already breaking for its meaning. It once had meant the promise of a better life. Of good nights celebrating another job finished and dreaming about the white picket fenced house, the kids and the oh-so-boring life of a couple living on the suburbs. Maybe Neal could have an art gallery and Kate be a full-time mom and they'd have barbecues in the backyard and watch their kids play soccer on weekends.

Neal sat on the floor against the column facing the windows and wondered not for the first time - before preferring to go with the theory that Kate had to be in trouble - where had it all gone wrong. _When_ had it all gone so wrong. Why hadn't he seen it? He knew that being in prison for three years would be a trial in their relationship, one he was sure they would surpass. One she had promised him they would. And her weekly visits had proven him that. They spoke about when he'd get out, their plans for the future and sometimes they weren't in prison, they were at some beach on the Cote d'Azur enjoying the sun and drinking champagne with strawberries. So how could he be prepared for this? For this heartache he was feeling, right now. When for a whole month he had denied any other possibility than the one that Kate was being compelled, blackmailed by someone. How could he just accept everything was gone. How couldn't he have noticed this coming, the end of a dream, of a life together?

Chest heaving Neal took a deep breath to try and fight the prickling of tears that menaced to come.

It was just an empty bottle of 1982's Bordeaux wine that they never drank. It had always been some other wine in it, and maybe that was the irony of it. The thing that represented their dreams was a lie from the beginning.

No, it wasn't just a bottle, Neal mused all hope gone, looking at the label not noticing the footsteps behind him.

It was goodbye.

******end******


End file.
